With the advent of very fast computer processors, high-density storage systems, and fast computer networks, digital audio and video is gradually replaces analog audio and video. The United States had begun a transition from an analog video broadcast standard commonly known as NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) to a digital video broadcast standard commonly referred to as ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee). Digital video provides many advantages over analog video such as greater bandwidth efficiency, signal robustness, and higher resolution video formats.
The transition from the legacy analog television broadcast format to the newer digital television broadcast format is proceeding slowly. Although the official FCC (Federal Communication Commission) plan is to have television stations begin to turn off analog television broadcast transmitters by 1996, most analysts believe analog television broadcasting will extend beyond that time.
One digital video format that has been rapidly adopted is the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD, sometimes referred to as the Digital Video Disc) format. The DVD format uses an optical disc format that is the same physical form factor as the well-known Compact Disc (CD) format but contains a higher density media. DVD videodiscs store video information using the MPEG2 (Motion Picture Expert Group) video compression standard. DVD players have been one of the fastest growing consumer electronics platforms. In the period beginning with the introduction of the DVD format in 1997 up to mid 2001, there have been over twenty million DVD players sold in the United States. The low cost and high quality of the DVD format has guaranteed its success.
Up until recently, the DVD format has been a “read only” format for consumers. Specifically, consumers could only purchase prerecorded DVD videodiscs. However, DVD recorder systems have recently become available. In order to record a DVD, sophisticated DVD authoring software is required. The DVD authoring software must mix together digital video data, digital audio data, control data, and file format data in order to create an integrated bitstream that will be used to create a DVD videodisc. Creating this integrated bitstream has traditionally been a cumbersome process only performed by video professionals in order to create prerecorded DVD videodiscs. To allow consumers to be able to record their own DVD videodiscs, it would be desirable to simplify and shorten the process of creating an integrated bitstream.